1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for extracting, classifying, and displaying related words for a query if an internet or local computer or a mobile appliance user inputs the query.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As generally known in the art, a human, unlike a computer, may clearly recognize and remember the meaning and background of a specified word rather than clearly and accurately remembering the specified word, but may not clearly remember the surface word that is represented by the meaning and the background. For example, a human cannot clearly remember whether the target word is “vessel”, “container”, or “bucket”, but can clearly recognize what it is.
In order to complement unstable human memories as described above, several methods for providing convenience when searching have been attempted in existing portal sites and search sites.
One of them is a query presenting function that is called a query auto-completion.
FIG. 1 is a view illustrating an example of the conventionally used query auto-completion.
This function shows multiple presented words including an input query through a drop-down menu even if a search user inputs only part of the query. The related queries are presented in the order of their similarity and frequency. Since this function enables search users to select a desired query among multiple queries presented by a search device even if the search user only knows only a part of the query, time required to input the queries can be reduced, and the user can conveniently conduct the searches.
For example, even if a user, who desires to search for “internet banking”, inputs only “inter” on a search window, multiple queries starting with “inter”, such as “internet”, “internet phone”, “internet banking”, and the like, are marshalled, and thus the user can select the desired query. However, the above described query auto-completion has the problem that in order to achieve the search, the user should input the contents included in the query for which the user intends to search.
Another search function uses a synonym dictionary. That is, if the user inputs a certain query, this function marshals queries for the input query. However, in the case where they are actually similar to one another, the range of similarity gets over philological “meaning of a word” and “synonym”. For example, although English words “accommodation” and “rent” are not synonymous, their meanings are relevant to each other.
Recently, related word functions that marshal queries related to a specified query if a user inputs the specified query have been proposed. However, the currently proposed related word functions are made on the basis of the user's keyword input.
FIG. 2 is a view illustrating an example of showing related words using a conventional method.
For example, if a user inputs a query of “Iraq” through a currently used search engine, “Iraq War”, “Israel”, “Russia”, “U.S.A.”, and the like, are marshalled together with the result of searching for “Iraq”. Such related words are merely the marshalling of words subsequently searched by persons who have searched for “Iraq”.
If a user, who desires to search for a specified U.S. President, does not remember his name or other information, but remembers that he was the U.S. President during the Iraq War, the user may input “Iraq” as a query to see the related words. However, according to the conventional method, it is impossible for the user to conduct the corresponding search because the related words are not prepared to have actual relations with one another, but are prepared on the basis of a certain search pattern in which users conduct subsequent searches after searching a certain word.